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Post-Halloween Reflections

Halloween comes and goes, but never fails to leave behind a plethora of statements about our culture, individuality and shrewd ingenuity. The annual celebration of All Hallows’ Eve provides an opportunity to transform into whoever you want to be in the most bizarre context of the year. Stepping outside and into the public Notre Dame atmosphere catapults you into an idiosyncratic nightmare filled with ghouls, goblins, witches and the occasional Donald Trump. Halloween is always an incredibly fun time to observe who dressed in the most common costume, who came up with the cleverest idea and who crossed the line, going from hilarious to absolutely ridiculous and sometimes slightly offensive. It is important to reflect on what went right, what went wrong and what went somewhere in between; regardless, Halloween 2015 was surely one for the books.

As I hinted at, Donald Trump was everywhere this Halloween. Absolutely everywhere. Normally seeing this many Donald Trumps in one place at one time would immediately motivate me to transfer schools as soon as possible; however, the effect was quite hilarious. Watching one Donald Trump spill his drink in one corner only to find another Donald Trump belting out the Ghostbusters theme song in the other made his (or, rather, “their”) presence so much more tolerable. So, Donald, thank you for yet again bringing some hilarity into my life with your everlasting absurdity and costume-worthy persona.

What made the multitude of Trump costumes even more amusing was the amount of Drakes standing in close proximity. Dressing as Drake for Halloween is pretty great to begin with, but the best part was the amount of variations I witnessed. There was Drake-Meek Mill duos (with the occasional Nicki Minaj thrown in between), “Hotline Bling” Drakes and absurd interpretations of Drake’s profile from his 2013 “Nothing Was The Same” album cover. Usually, common costumes are some of the least interesting, but the personal touches and individuality each person brought to their Drake guises made it one of the best costumes of the year.

Yet another hilarious common costume came with the male take on stereotypical female Halloween costumes. There’s nothing more entertaining than seeing one of your guy friends dressed as a sexy cat (equipped with cat ears, face paint and booty shorts) or Minnie Mouse (again, mouse ears, face paint and booty shorts). One of the best I saw was a man decked out in long red hair, a seashell bra and glittering mermaid tail. I’m not necessarily saying Disney should remake The Little Mermaid and replace Ariel with a merman, but I am saying it would be ingenious if they did.

On the other hand, with countless amazing costumes come a few not-so-amazing costumes. As we embark on the journey that is Halloweekend each year, we must remind ourselves that cultures are not costumes. Cultural appropriation runs rampant when people are allowed to dress as something/someone else for the day. I’m talking about the “thug” that puts cornrows in their hair and further appropriates black culture, the “Eskimo” that throws on a winter jacket in a feeble attempt to represent an entire group of indigenous people and the “Indian” that puts a feather in their hair and runs around chanting. It’s not cool; it’s actually quite disrespectful. So, as we continue to recover from “Halloweekend” and start brainstorming ideas for next year, let’s keep this in mind; and not gain 15 pounds from all that candy.